Wilkie Collins: The Best Works

Wilkie Collins

Description

This ebook compiles Wilkie Collins' greatest writings, including novels, novellas, short stories and travel narratives such as "The Moonstone", "The Woman in White", "The Yellow Mask", "Rambles Beyond Railways", "Armadale" and "A Terribly Strange Bed".
This edition has been professionally formatted and contains several tables of contents. The first table of contents (at the very beginning of the ebook) lists the titles of all novels included in this volume. By clicking on one of those titles you will be redirected to the beginning of that work, where you'll find a new TOC that lists all the chapters and sub-chapters of that specific work.

Sujets

• Biography
• The Complete Works
• Bestseller (disambiguation)
• The Screwtape Letters
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Armadale
• Free
• Narnia
• C. S. Lewis
• Hobbit
• Le Seigneur des anneaux
• J. R. R. Tolkien

Informations

• Publié par: Pandora's Box
• Date de parution: 05 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• EAN13: 9789897785375
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE BEST WORKS OF
Wilkie Collins
Table of Contents
 
 
 
Rambles Beyond Railways
A Terribly Strange Bed
The Yellow Mask
A Plot in Private Life
The Woman in White
No Name
Armadale
The Moonstone
Poor Miss Finch
Miss Bertha and the Yankee
Heart and Science
 
Rambles Beyond Railways
First published : 1851
a travel narrative
 
 
 
A Letter of Introduction
Chapter 1 — The Start
Chapter 2 — A Cornish Fishing Town
Chapter 3 — Holy Wells and Druid Relics
Chapter 4 — Cornish People
Chapter 5 — Loo-Pool
Chapter 6 — The Lizard
Chapter 7 — The Pilchard Fishery
Chapter 8 — The Land’s End
Chapter 9 — Botallack Mine
Chapter 10 — The Modern Drama in Cornwall
Chapter 11 — The Ancient Drama in Cornwall
Chapter 12 — The Nuns of Mawgan
Chapter 13 — Legends of the Northern Coast
 
A Letter of Introduction
 
 
 
Dear Reader,
When any friend of yours or mine, in whose fortunes we take an interest, is about to start on his travels, we smooth his way for him as well as we can, by giving him a letter of introduction to such connexions of ours as he may find on his line of route. We bespeak their favourable consideration for him by setting forth his good qualities in the best light possible; and then leave him to make his own way by his own merit — satisfied that we have done enough in procuring him a welcome under our friend’s roof, and giving him at the outset a claim to our friend’s estimation.
Will you allow me, reader (if our previous acquaintance authorizes me to take such a liberty), to follow the custom to which I have just adverted; and to introduce to your notice this Book, as a friend of mine setting forth on his travels, in whose well-being I feel a very lively interest. He is neither so bulky nor so distinguished a person as some of the predecessors of his race, who may have sought your attention in years gone by, under the name of “Quarto,” and in magnificent clothing of Morocco and Gold. All that I can say for his outside is, that I have made it as neat as I can — having had him properly thumped into wearing his present coat of decent cloth, by the most competent book-tailor I could find. As for his intrinsic claims to your kindness, he has only two that I shall venture to advocate. In the first place he is able to tell you something about a part of your own country which is still too rarely visited and too little known. He will speak to you of one of the remotest and most interesting corners of our old English soil. He will tell you of the grand and varied scenery; the mighty Druid relics; the quaint legends; the deep, dark mines; the venerable remains of early Christianity; and the pleasant primitive population of the county of CORNWALL. You will inquire, can we believe him in all that he says? This brings me at once to his second qualification — he invariably speaks the truth. If he describes scenery to you, it is scenery that he saw and noted on the spot; and if he adds some little sketches of character, I answer for him, on my own responsibility, that they are sketches drawn from the life.
Have I said enough about my friend to interest you in his fortunes, when you meet him wandering hither and thither over the great domain of the Republic of Letters — or, must I plead more warmly in his behalf? I can only urge on you that he does not present himself as fit for the top seats at the library table — as aspiring to the company of those above him — of classical, statistical, political, philosophical, historical, or antiquarian high dignitaries of his class, of whom he is at best but the poor relation. Treat him not, as you treat such illustrious guests as these! Toss him about anywhere, from hand to hand, as good-naturedly as you can; stuff him into your pocket when you get into the railway; take him to bed with you, and poke him under the pillow; present him to the rising generation, to try if he can amuse them ; give him to the young ladies, who are always predisposed to the kind side, and may make something of him; introduce him to “my young masters” when they are idling away a dull morning over their cigars. Nay, advance him if you will, to the notice of the elders themselves; but take care to ascertain first that they are people who only travel to gratify a hearty admiration of the wonderful works of Nature, and to learn to love their neighbour better by seeking him at his own home — regarding it, at the same time, as a peculiar privilege, to derive their satisfaction and gain their improvement from experiences on English ground. Take care of this; and who knows into what high society you may not be able to introduce the bearer of the present letter! In spite of his habit of rambling from subject to subject in his talk, much as he rambled from place to place in his travels, he may actually find himself, one day, basking on Folio Classics beneath the genial approval of a Doctor of Divinity, or trembling among Statutes and Reports under the learned scrutiny of a Sergeant at Law!
 
W. C.
Harley Street, London,
March, 1861 .
 
Chapter 1 — The Start
 
 
 
Assuredly, considering that our tour was to be a pedestrian tour, we began it inconsistently enough, by sitting down in the stern-sheets of a boat; tucking our knapsacks under our feet, and proceeding on our journey, not by making use of our own legs, but of another man’s oars.
You will be inclined to ask, how many people are comprehended under the term “we?” what was our object in travelling? and where we were travelling to? I answer, that by “we,” I mean the author and the illustrator of this book; that our only object in travelling was our own pleasure; and that our destination was, generally, Cornwall, and, particularly, the village of St. Germans, towards which we were now proceeding in our boat from the town of Devonport.
The main reason that urged us to choose Cornwall as the scene of a walking tour which we had long proposed to ourselves, in some part of our own country, was simply this — Cornwall presented to us the most untrodden ground that we could select for our particular purpose. You may number by thousands, admirers of the picturesque who have been to Wales, to Devonshire, to the Lakes, to Ireland, to Scotland; but ask them if they have ever been to Cornwall, and you begin to tell them off by twos and threes only. Nay, take up the map of the world, and I doubt whether Cornwall will not gain by comparison with foreign countries, as an unexplored region offered to the curiosity of the tourist. Have we not, in fact, got under our thumbs, or in our circulating libraries, volumes of excellent books which amuse us with the personal experiences and adventures of travellers in every part of the habitable globe — except, perhaps, Cornwall and Kamtschatka? That the latter place should still be left open ground to the modern traveller, is, in these days, extraordinary enough; but that Cornwall should share the same neglect, passes all comprehension. Yet so it is. Even the railway stops short at Plymouth, and shrinks from penetrating to the savage regions beyond! * In a word, on considering where we should go, as pedestrians anxious to walk where fewest strangers had walked before, we found ourselves fairly limited to a choice between Cornwall and Kamtschatka — we were patriotic, and selected the former.
While my travelling companion was cleaning his colour-box, and collecting his sketching-books, I employed myself in seeking for information, among my friends, on the subject of our line of route. The great majority of them wondered what was the use of going to Cornwall. Was it not a horribly dreary country, where you could expect to do nothing but tumble down mines, and lose yourself on pathless moors? Were not the whole population wreckers and smugglers? Should we not be cheated, robbed, and kidnapped? Such were a few only of the opinions that my inquiries elicited. Very different, however, were the answers I received when I applied to one friend who was a Cornishman, and to another who had really been in Cornwall. From the first, especially, I received such an account of what we might see and do in the far West of England, if we travelled on foot and looked sharply about us, as materially accelerated the day of our departure. We packed up our knapsacks, transported ourselves at once to Plymouth, and, getting to the western water-side, saw the hills of Cornwall rising before us, lit by the last glorious evening rays of a July sunlight.
And now, reader, if you can follow a couple of vagrant tourists, with all their luggage on their backs; with a perfect independence of high roads, stage-coaches, time-tables, and guide-books; with no other object in view but to wander about hither and thither, in a zig-zag course, picking up a trait of character here, and a sketch from Nature there — why, then, step into our boat by all means, and let us go to St. Germans together.
We were lucky enough to commit ourselves, at once, to the guidance of the most amusing and original of boatmen. He was a fine, strong, swarthy fellow, with luxuriant black hair and whiskers, an irresistible broad grin, and a thoroughly good opinion of himself. He gave us his name, his autobiography, and his opinion of his own character, all in a breath. He was called William Dawle; he had begun life as a fa